Nestle launches first innovative (!!) complete feeding system for babies

[Jellyfish]

Seems to me it is a lot more difficult for people in a 3rd World Country to make an informed choice... they can't exactly jump on BellyBelly and read up on the ins and outs of things. THAT is why I feel so against Nestle, it is praying on those who are without the ability to make proper informed choices. Sure, education IS important but so is sending a message to these companys that what they are doing is not supported and not right. At least I think so anyway, no reason not to fight from all angles.

[Phteven]

Seems to me it is a lot more difficult for people in a 3rd World Country to make an informed choice... they can't exactly jump on BellyBelly and read up on the ins and outs of things. THAT is why I feel so against Nestle, it is praying on those who are without the ability to make proper informed choices. Sure, education IS important but so is sending a message to these companys that what they are doing is not supported and not right. At least I think so anyway, no reason not to fight from all angles.

I totally agree with you.
Saying that it's about choices can be kind of like blaming the victim if we are arguing that women in developing nations should just inform and educate themselves so they can make better choices.
On the other hand saying it's about choices can mean that we can use our choices to empower the women and children of the developing world who don't have access to the information and resources that we do.
I genuinely don't understand how any woman who knows what Nestle, Fronterra etc get up to in the developing world who doesn't boycott them. How can it be more important to eat a kit-kat than to tell a company that you won't deal with them because of they kill babies. It's not like we don't have choices - there are plenty of other brands out there. Some of them are even Australian.
I do understand the people who chose to support a local factory that is owned by Nestle because local jobs are important and people who use a product for health reasons and can't substitute it. I know that some people think that the good the BodyShop does outweighs the Nestle connection (I'm still working through that). At least they have thought through their options and made the choice that is right for them and/or their community but to just not care is pretty much beyond my imaginative powers.

[helle]

So... How's this machine affecting third world countries again? I doubt they'd be able to afford one...

[Phteven]

Aspiration marketing Helle.

It's why the airlines advertise 1st Class not economy and BMW spends a great deal more advertising the X5 and X6 than the X3 and X1.

[helle]

Aspiration marketing Helle.

It's why the airlines advertise 1st Class not economy and BMW spends a great deal more advertising the X5 and X6 than the X3 and X1.

Aspiration alright!!

[Smoke Jaguar]

Aside from all the other astute and insightful responses I've read here, I avoid Nestle because they insult my intellgence so I will insult their money with a big, fat snub. And any other company that does the same.
If you don't care about the power of your money, go ahead and buy, buy, buy.

[Trillian]

but what about the waste?

anyone?

really, both BF anf FF mummys should be trying to eliminate as much landfill as possible. both BF anf FF babies will inherit the rubbish we leave behind....

I'm listening!!!! And I totally agree. In our home, we try to live ethically and sustainably and anyone who knows me knows that I'm really passionate about those things. And this product isn't ethical and nor is it sustainable. it is encouraging you to buy more *stuff* and the more stuff you buy, the bigger the toll on the environment. Regardless of whether I BF or FF, it goes against everything I stand for to buy it. I also don't own a dishwasher or a coffee machine I just don'twant my home cluttered with items that will inevitably end up in landfill.

[Smoke Jaguar]

Helle, it affects the developing world by lining pockets that pay for more unethical advertising and the bribes (these DO happen) to allow that to happen in those countries. Naivete costs. Consumerism costs - and it doesn't just cost you (generalised 'you').
If you think this product is great then guess what? Hook, line and sinker. Job done, someone's justified their salary and the spin they call 'information' has worked.
If you think any of these companies actually has any interest in 'informing' you of your choices then please, enjoy the taste of that sand.
If you are one of those that has to use their products, please just know what you're using so that you can mitigate the risks. YES, there are risks to FF. Back in the bad old days of survival of the fittest, babies of women who couldn't produce milk were fed by someone else or they died. Just because they needn't die of starvation and malnutrition these days doesn't mean you are being marketed the best and complete food for your baby. But the companies won't tell you this, they'll just keep selling you stuff. So, sites like this exist for you to find out what the risks are so that you CAN compensate (most likely with products not marketed by these companies - perhaps the health food shop for some flaxseed oil, nut oils, fish oils etc, companies making things because they actually give a damn about the health of your children) for the increased risks associated with not breastfeeding. No-one in their right or scientific mind is going to tell you that FF CAUSES these things - they just increase the incidence. From that point it's up to you to do what you can to mitigate how much.
Meanwhile, Nestle has you by the short and curlies if you buy into this machine, and like sod you won't think toddler milk is a terrible idea after you've parted with a goodly bit of Baby Bonus to get the machine in the first place and want to think you're maximising your outlay.
So, yeah, not only do women in developing countries get dudded because of the money you give to these companies, you're getting dudded, too. Because they are not interested in you getting any REAL, unbiased information about what they have to sell to you. They've got a holiday in the Bahamas permanently booked in February and don't you go and mess that up!
Open your eyes or keep them closed, that's YOUR choice if you've been a reading member of this site for more than a day. You have a choice now.

[Phteven]

Tricky Nestle, very tricky.
The site was down all day but it seems to be up now.
As we know marketing artificial baby milk for babies is illegal but Nestle appears to think that marketing a system from 0 - 3 years is not a contravention of the code....

[Smoke Jaguar]

A de facto contract with those families to lock them into Nestle products. Nice one. Marketing genius - no-one is saying they're stupid!

[Fleur]

Yeah, wonderful gadget, yada yada. Would have sucked to be me trying to use that with DD1 though, she never fed according to the 'schedule' of hours/amounts printed on the formula tin so if I'd had something like this made available to me at the time, she would have starved, or I would have been standing there at 3am taking 10 mins instead of 1 to make a bottle because I'd have had to repeat the process about four times to get a single bottle, itms.
I don't like the idea, purely because I think it's junk (like a PP said, nappy wipe warmers and all that other nonsense that's just a way to part over-excited/concerned parents from their hard-earned), and I worry that it outsources even basic instinctual behaviour in parents. Like I said, my first child was formula fed and I had to use my brain to observe her feeding habits and adjust according to her needs, I worry that some babies will essentially be starved through the use of machines like this because parents don't have that leeway to make bigger bottles for hungry bubs, and might assume that the 'machine knows best' and deny their babies essential nutrition because they don't understand that not all babies 'meet the guidelines'...

Pretty much what i thought...

I haven't read through the whole 6 pages, I will go back though.

What strikes me with the whole Nestle thing is, it's not about FF vs BF. We all know there are times when you cannot, for whatever reason, BF. So there needs to be an alternative. The problem is when that alternative is marketed - and especially when it is marketed to people who have no way of knowing the facts behind the choices they are making - if Nestle just stuck to making a product that was availble on script, like an antibiotic or a painkiller say - then they wouldn't be able to push it so hard on people who might not actually need it.

I think the machine is a colossal waste of money & resources, it's a gimmick like so many others. But I guess if a FF mother decides it is going to enhance her life & buys one...well each to their own not my business, not my problem. I ama bit concerned that the 'gimmickery' (is that a word?) of it might encourage some FFding... but then perhaps it's back on society, and our healthcare system to provide more information & support for BFing?

[Fleur]

I dunno... I address the Nestle thing in my first post because I couldn't really see that this was about FF vs BF? I thought it was more about was this really necessary, and yes, the Nestle thing, rather than than FF in itself.

I couldn't care less if anyone formula fed or breast fed. Their body, their baby, their decision. I would never tell anyone their choice was the wrong one.

But i do care about informing people...... i think there is a big difference.

Well said. I sometimes feel like I need to put a disclaimer in these threads... 'I FFed and BFed, so I'm not judging anyone's choices...'
But give me information any day.
Some things, had I known differently I would have done differently. Some things I would not have because at that point in time I couldnot. But if I had had the information, I would have had the choice.

but what about the waste?

anyone?

really, both BF anf FF mummys should be trying to eliminate as much landfill as possible. both BF anf FF babies will inherit the rubbish we leave behind....

Rory, I hear you on the waste. One of the reasons I wouldn't like this no matter who made it.

[/I]

If it wasn't nestle it would be another company. Would it have been posted if Wyeth bought it out first. Or if delonghi teamed up with a company and bought one out?

FWIW, I still wouldn't like it.

I don't like Nestle. I don't like the marketing of things which promote consumerism & waste (and yet I fall victim to it too...) I don't get why anyone would think this machine is necessary.
But absolutely, if someone wants to buy it & use it, that's their choice.

I wouldnt dare blast her for buying something like this, just like I wouldnt want her scoffing at me buying a nursing pillow.

I agree.

[Yeddi]

A BB member visited one of these third world places a few years ago and saw a huge billboard by Nestle for formula: 'Be Like Your Western Cousins' - they will do whatever they can get away with to mess with people's mind so they buy a product that was designed to feed orphans, that had no other access to breastmilk. Now its a FMCG. Sad what they've done to women's confidence in their own bodies.

I've seen similar, but with a Coke billboard. My brother is a combat cameraman, and has a picture he took just outside of the Ugandan refugee camp after the Rwanda incident. There was this huge billboard and underneath was lined hundreds of bodies of people who had died of cholera and were waiting to be bulldozed off into a mass grave. It was the closest thing they had to a tombstone. Perhaps the Nestle billboard could have that honour for the next human disaster seeing as they are spending good money making these billboards while the people around them starve, dehydrate etc.

As for the machine, another gimmick that I'm sure will appeal to some. I can actually seeing it be a lot more work in the end. I couldn't BF DD, but I would make up all her bottles in the morning in one big batch. In comparison, this is so fiddly and expensive.

[Phteven]

Perhaps the Nestle billboard could have that honour for the next human disaster seeing as they are spending good money making these billboards while the people around them starve, dehydrate etc.

In 2007 their advertising budget was estimated at $17.2 billion
That's a lot of billboards.

[JLeigh29]

I think it is about bfing vs ffing. I was shopping last week and saw a young pregnant girl and her partner in the baby aisle having the discussion about which formula/steriliser/bottles etc to get and were going back and forth justifying each by the ads they'd seen or what their friends do, or with the old 'this is the most expensive so it must be the best'. Another girl was with them and said, "Are you going to try to breastfeed?" to which the girl looked at her and said, "Oh yes, for the first month, then I'm switching". A bit of well-targeted marketing and there's someone who's gonna get one of these things because they've been told ff is best/most convenient, and this will be an expensive ffing gadget so it must be good, and 'new' technology always means better technology, doesn't it?

If this forum encourages critical literacy, then it's doing it's job. I just hate to think of the people out there who don't have the skills to discern bias or understand the difference between fact and opinion in what they read/hear (including in this thread - which is great. People are entitled and welcome to express opinions). And if people still want to buy this machine, how can we stop them?

[Fleur]

I think it is about bfing vs ffing. I was shopping last week and saw a young pregnant girl and her partner in the baby aisle having the discussion about which formula/steriliser/bottles etc to get and were going back and forth justifying each by the ads they'd seen or what their friends do, or with the old 'this is the most expensive so it must be the best'. Another girl was with them and said, "Are you going to try to breastfeed?" to which the girl looked at her and said, "Oh yes, for the first month, then I'm switching". A bit of well-targeted marketing and there's someone who's gonna get one of these things because they've been told ff is best/most convenient, and this will be an expensive ffing gadget so it must be good, and 'new' technology always means better technology, doesn't it?

If this forum encourages critical literacy, then it's doing it's job. I just hate to think of the people out there who don't have the skills to discern bias or understand the difference between fact and opinion in what they read/hear (including in this thread - which is great. People are entitled and welcome to express opinions). And if people still want to buy this machine, how can we stop them?

Yes, but then it's about being informed, and making an informed choice (I almost hate using those words because you hear them so much here! but that's what it is)

It's not about the women who couldn't breastfeed for whatever reason, it's not about judgement at all. And if someone chooses to breastfeed for a month & then switch because she believes it's best, or that there's no difference, then she's doing her best, too.
(and I'm not saying your post said any different JLeigh, just addressing those who felt it was an attack on FF mothers. I don't think it is.)

[JLeigh29]

Fleur - Definitely not meant as an attack on ff mothers. Just saying that this system can be perceived as just another reason not to bf.

[Junglemum]

I am sure Nestle is not the only company to advertise in such a manner. I think we could all think of pmany comanies not just related to baby stuff that over emphasis/ under emphasis, misrepresent, lie etc. It is unethical- but its the nature of the beast...thats advertising for ya!

And all of what you have said is right....

But its not this machine or the next machine or the one after that that one can 'blame'. Given- education etc is important but at the end of the day its all choice and if people choice to FF because its a status symbol then all we can do if provide them with the tools to make it as safe as possible. A machine that delivers the 'correct dose' can change the 'watering down of formula' cant it?

...Its not Nestle in isolation that causes the tragedies that you have mentioned...its peoples choices.

Perhaps there are others, yes in fact Coca Cola are guilty too. I can be driving in the middle of nowhere and there will be billboards and signs for Maggi noddles, stock (owned by Nestle) and Coca Cola. A friend owns a supermarket in PNG and he told me that Maggi have a 90% market share of instant noodles. There are cheaper products imported from Indonesia, there are locally made products, none of which have the capacity to compete with the advertising of Nestle. Friends of mine honestly believe that Maggi noodles are better purely because of advertising. They think they are better to give their children than fresh veggies because that's what the signs say.

But i don't really see how that is relevant. Sure, there are other companies that do the wrong thing. But just because others do it too or 'if Nestle didn't some else would', doesn't make it right.

And as for choice, most of the people i see are not given the opportunities we are which makes us capable of choice. They are uneducated, by that i mean most have never been to school, and the ones that have went to grade 5. They don't read or speak English, if they could the newspaper is about an hours wage, so not many people would buy it. And even then the journalism is less than informative. They have never left the village they are from because the bus fair to the city, 2.5hrs away, is too expensive. They don't have television, certainly not internet, hell, these people sleep on sarongs on the floor, in a small hut, which is one room. They all sleep together. They cook outside on a fire and all eat from one or two plates because that's all they have. How are they able to make a good choice about anything like nutrition? How are they supposed to be educated about it? To blame them and say it is their choice, is really unfair.